


It Wasn't Just the Sky

by plantsaway



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Pining, UFOs, hopefully that got your attention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:21:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8498677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantsaway/pseuds/plantsaway
Summary: Michael is a UFO hunter—he gets overly excited by lights in the sky and has regular run-ins with the government at mysterious and "QUARANTINED" crash sites. Ashton is his best friend, cash cow, and reluctant side-kick (when he's not working on his doctorate).Inspired by This and This!





	1. Forward

There's a room in Ashton Irwin's apartment that he rarely goes into. Sometimes, in a fit of cleanliness or procrastination, he'll go in to dust and vacuum. For the most part, however, the room is left undisturbed.

But Ash always leaves the door wide open, day in and day out. Sometimes the person he loves most comes back, comes home, and uses that room, and that person has tacked dozens of posters, hundreds of photographs, and what seems like a thousand sticky notes with arrows, question marks, and a familiar scratchy scribble.

While Ashton closes his eyes to much of the content on those walls, there's one exception, and it's the reason he leaves the door open, despite the questioning and cautious looks of guests, despite his own doubts in the reality the walls put forth. Tacked up, in the middle of that jumble of nonsense and impossibility, is a large photo, clumsily framed in red yarn. It's a photo of Ashton with his best friend, Michael Clifford.

It's a great photo, really. And to Ashton, it means that, somewhere in a mind cluttered with delusions of UFOs and government coverups, Michael might think of him as much as he does Michael.


	2. Early

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did my damnedest to edit, but there'll still be typos here and there. Please let me know if there's anything glaringly bad!
> 
> Shortly after meeting "Kate," there is a lesbian-specific slur. Skip down a few paragraphs if needed—you won't miss too much :)

It wasn’t just the sky that fascinated Michael. It was all the potential it held; between the bright stars, anything, entire worlds and beings could be out there. _Were_ out there, he’d stake his life on it. And had, once or twice or a half dozen times, much to the chagrin of his best friend and too-rare sidekick, Ashton.

To put it bluntly, Michael was an alien hunter. Not in the sense that he _hunts_ aliens, more that he feels his purpose is to chase rumors and faded newsprint into the open stretches of night sky that might, one day, concretely prove what Michael knows in his heart to be true—that extraterrestrial beings exist, that they visit Earth.

Looking back, he’s not sure when he decided to become a full-time UFO-hunter. Probably the “full-time” aspect of it didn’t become obvious until partway through high school, maybe around the time he grew close with Ashton, when he decided higher education wasn’t for him and his life was better suited for something higher...celestial, even. With Ash’s encouragement, he _had_ finished, graduated, but after that, he was on the road, leaving the city he grew up in for wide swaths of stars and whispers of “lights in the sky over those hills” and “government cover-ups.”

The first place he set out for, in his hard-wheeling old station wagon, was the grandmother of all alien activity, Area 51. But while heading through Denver, he had a change of heart. _Ought to build up to the big one_ , he thought, _maybe go further south first_.

So Michael wound up in Roswell, New Mexico, during the brightest meteor shower of the year.

* * *

Nothing, not a speck or sound out of place the first night. Every satellite accounted for, he doesn't get overexcited by planes like he used to, and yes, the occasional shooting star does make his heart drop into his boots, but they're nothing to write home about. Anything he wants to see with be a good deal closer.

Listening to the static hum of the radio, he's not disheartened per se, but he's surprised by how lonely he feels. On the rare nights he would drive out of the suburbs, down the highway to darker skies, he had always had Ashton—often Calum and Luke as well—with him. Michael knows they each have their own dreams, their own goals, and he does _prefer_ being alone, but it meant something, those nights they'd lie on the hood of Michael's station wagon and just look _up_. Michael'd talk about the constellations, sometimes yell at Luke when he's pick the brightest as his favorite star, when he was really just shrieking at Venus. Calum was always quiet. One night Cal had taken his new camera, a birthday gift their senior year, and taken a long-exposure shot of the night sky as it slowly spun above them. That photo is one of Michael's personal treasures, and he almost wishes he'd gone to college just to tack the photo up on his wall, and to have more nights like that with his friends.

Sometimes Ashton would be quiet too. He'd always drive, though it was Michael's car, and he'd nag Mike as he drove, claiming they should be sleeping or doing homework or _anything_ else, especially after he started college while the rest of them were still in high school. But once they'd pick a spot to pull over, Ash always got quiet; sometimes he would explain to Michael redshift and blueshift, or try to point out the exact gravitational heart of the Milky Way, but mostly he was silent. He never teased Michael though, despite being the one person that knew how deep Michael's "little alien thing" went.

And now, alone and states away from home, Michael misses all of them.

He thinks any sort of unnatural glow from sky would cure that.

 

The next night, after a day of sleeping late, visiting tourist traps, and meeting some other excited UFO chasers—none as dedicated as him, it seems—he drives out to the same place. Consistency and commitment, he's read, breeds success in this field.

 At the back of his station wagon, pinned up on a precariously propped cork-board that rattles annoyingly when Michael drives too fast, is a list of the major seasonal meteor showers. However, it's late June and the Bootids aren't coming around this year. The possibility for a shower hasn't even crossed his mind. He expects another quiet night—hopes for something more.

Around 2 AM, he sees a shooting star—a _bright_ shooting star. Thirty seconds later, there's another one, streaking away in the same direction as the first. Michael's no dummy, and then two more chase each other out of the darkness, he starts laughing, abandons the camp chair he'd set up next to the open hatch of his car, and hops onto the hood.

Ten minutes later, the meteors are shooting by in dozens, leaving a riot of overbright flashes in Michael's eyes. Twenty minutes after that, it seems like hundreds of the Arietids—for that's that this must be—are flashing across the sky. The stars are gone; it's more of a storm than a shower. In the afternoon, after Michael wakes up and does a little research, he'll be amazed to learn that "meteor storm" really is one of the terms to use for the spectacle he saw that night.

Equipment forgotten, belief and purpose forgotten, Michael doesn't feel so alone anymore. Lying back on his hood, he has no idea that tears are streaming out of the corners of his eyes, running down his temples and into his hair. He picks up his phone just once, to send a too-blurry video of the sky to Ashton, who doesn't respond.

The shower slows as it reaches 3 AM. Michael returns to his chair, his folding desk, his tech, a little after. He feels more alive than he's ever felt, like even though he hasn't accomplished a thing, the universe has sent him the _something_ he was hoping for, a sign, to carry on, that this is exactly where he's meant to be.

He reads up a little more on the Arietids; they're supposed to peak at the start of June, not the end. And it's not too out there that they can get so bright and constant, but it's almost unheard of to be so late.

Michael's not one to believe in a cosmic order, but everything points to the fact that he needed to be there, in New Mexico, not Nevada as he'd planned, to see them.

* * *

Four months later, he comes home, entirely changed and somehow still Michael—at least to Ashton.

 

Somewhere down the line, Michael thinks it was Oklahoma, but it may have been Louisiana, he'd traded in his old green station wagon for a van, and Ashton wishes that was as stereotypical as it got. When Michael opens up the back doors, grinning like it's Christmas come two months early, Ash is shocked by all the junk he's manged to fit in there. Most of it is flashing gently, soft blues and greens, because, Michael explains, "I keep everything on standby mode now, just in case there's a daytime Event."

Ash can hear the capital "E" in Michael's voice, but that doesn't make him near as worried as the serial numbers stamped on most of the equipment, which, as he looks closer, is definitely a long way from the junk he first thought it was.

"So, where'd ya get all this stuff, Mikey? Looted a few junkyards?" he asks later that night, through a mouthful of fries. Begin in college, his second year, he doesn't go out much, but since Michael's home, he's made an exception, taken him to their favorite diner.

"Got a job, sort of," explains Michael, and Ash is happy to see him pack away the Reuben he'd ordered; it looks like Michael spends more on his van, or batteries for that worrisome crap inside, than he does meals for himself. "Some guys in Texas asked if i chased full time and I said yeah, and they asked if I was part of any groups, and well, you remember when I wrote away to that club in ninth grade, the one that sent me some pins for my backpack and a shitty laminated card I put in that duct tape wallet I had? Well, I figured that didn't much count anymore, so I told 'em no, and here we are. It's legit," he finishes with a proud smile.

As much as Ashton can see, feel, that Michael's happy, he's concerned as hell. "So, like, they pay you to do stuff you already were doing of your own volition? But now you have a gold star membership program?"

"Again, dickhead, sort of? They give me equipment to test—sometimes it works, sometimes not, and they send me different locations and reimburse me for travel costs, but I still wash the occasional dish or dig trenches, for like food and clothes and shit."

"So, you're like...an experimental drug tester, but for alien-detecting equipment..."

" _UFO_ -detecting equipment, but yeah, basically."

"Huh," Ashton returns to his fries, still concerned. He's spent the last several months concerned, but this is something new. It'll take Ashton about five more years of school before he can do what he wants to do, and here's Michael, already doing exactly what he's always dreamed about. Ashton has long ago decided that it would be an insult to their friendship to point out the insanity of Michael's obsession—he's made his peace with the fact that his best friend is what most people would deem a nut job, conspiracist, "x-files." And sure, he's a little jealous of Michael's early successes, but it's the "how" of it that really has Ashton's radar on high, no pun intended.

If Michael's noticed anything off about Ash's growing discomfort, he storms right by, "But how've you been, Ash? I miss you all the time. I know we text and facetime and all, but I miss _you_ just being around."

True to form, Michael's statement has Ashton pushing his concerns to the back of his mind, "I'm good, really good. Doing really well in my classes, somewhere near the top, despite worrying about your travelling ass all the time," Michael snorts soda out his nose at that, and Ashton interrupts himself to wave over their server and ask for extra napkins.

"And Luke and Cal? They're doing good? Hopefully I'll see them in the next few days."

"Yeah, they're good! You know, Luke is...here at school with me, doing his math thing, and Cal works for the paper."

"He mentioned that last month! Yeah, pretty cool! And he does the freelance thing sometimes too, proud of him."

"Me too. Great that he can do what he wants right now...you too, I guess," he adds after a beat.

Michael raises an eyebrow at him but doesn't say anything, and Ashton wills himself to keep his hangups in his head.

 

As they leave the restaurant to drive separately to Ashton's dorm, Ash can't help but notice Michael's van has four more antennas that it ought to.

 

Once they get to the dorm and Michael has insisted he'll just sleep on one of the empty couches in the common area, they wrap blankets from Ash's room around themselves and settle in to talk for awhile on Michael's "bed." Things eventually circulate back to Michael's new job, though Ashton keeps wanting to think "gang" or "scam."

"So, where do they get all they stuff, Mikey?  Can't _just_ be giving it to you, right, that's a poor way to test something, so they must have or make multiples..."

"Yeah, I'm not really sure. Never thought about it, I guess. Too excited." If it was anyone but Michael, he'd have a hard time believing that.

"You think, maybe, they got it from somewhere not very legit? Or rather, too legitimate?"

"What are you trying to say, Ash?" Michael's sat bolt upright now, and his tone is still calm, but they've known each other a long time, and Ashton wishes he'd just left it alone.

"Just, those serial numbers look like patent numbers. Which is fine, but my applied physics class took a field trip at the beginning of the semester to hear a lecture by a military engineer, and he had some equipment we could check out after the lecture, and, well, it looked like the stuff you have in the back of your van. It's fishy, is all," Ashton finishes weakly.

"So you think I have stolen military technology in the back of my van."

"Um—"

"That's cool, Ash, really, I'm glad that you've found a way to covertly sneer at my passions without doing it outright; yeah that really means a lot to me. I'm sure you've been holding it in a while. Shit, man, can't you just call me Loony Tunes like everyone else and we can drop this?!"

"I'm sor—"

"So, it's fine Ash. I have military secrets in my van and I believe in little green men—that's what you want me to say? Fine, that's fine. I'm outta here."

And he really does leave; before Ashton can fully grasp how far the conversation had tilted, Michael's already out the dorm's front door.

Running, he makes it outside as Michael's backing up and bangs on his window.

Michael keeps his eyes forward as he rolls the window down a crack and begins, "What Ashton, what? Just gonna apologize, try to cover up for the fact that you think your best friend is crazy?"

And Ashton can finally ask the question he's wondered the past few years, "No, Mikey, just...what are you really looking for, out there, on the road and in the sky?"

Michael eyes widen as he finally turns to face Ash. He rolls down the window even further and leans right into Ashton's face. And quietly, "Aliens, you condescending fuck."

Ashton can't quite believe what happened, even long after Michael's van disappeared down the road.

 

Michael heads to his parents' house. He's shoved everything that's just happened with Ashton out of his mind completely, he wants to slump up to his room and sleep for a week straight in the house he grew up in. He can tell his mom about all his adventures and laugh with his dad about dropping the station wagon he'd bought with his hard-earned dishwasher money the first chance he got.

After apologizing to his mom for not giving more notice, he gets ready for bed and ignores the voice in the back of his head that insists he overreacted and should apologize to Ashton as soon as he can.

 

He doesn't spare any time to even think about Ashton over the next few weeks. After sleeping through a night for the first time in months, he gets up at eleven to his mom's cooking and nagging, in that order, and picks up a job flipping burgers at a restaurant where he used to wash dishes. That night, he shows both his parents his new ride and is suitably pleased by his mom's excited clapping and the confused but fond look on his father's face.

He takes Calum and Luke out to a movie the next night—they immediately begin referring to his van as The Mystery Machine and Luke asks if sometime he can come with Michael on a trip. Cal laughs for a long time at that, choking out between giggles that Luke wouldn't last a week before missing his mom too much, "though, to be fair, your mom _is_ pretty great, Luke."

Michael just nods along, understands Luke's just being polite and excited, and while it'd be nice to have company sometimes, Hemmings isn't exactly who he'd have in mind. Though still furious, his mind traitorously turns to the idea of Ashton coming with him, and he shakes his head furiously, causing them to veer a little off the road.

"Second thought, maybe I'll just stay home, Mike. I'd like to live."

The three of them all laugh at that.

Michael leaves nearly three weeks later, decently better off and less one best friend than when we arrived back home. He's happy to go, he feels good about this one. On his first trip, the only truly out-of-the-ordinary thing he'd seen were the swamplights in the South. True, they were unnatural, and got his hopes up, but they'd just been what the locals called "hobs," gas emissions that sometimes glowed and appeared to dance in the the gloom. Supernatural or not—and Michael didn't care either way—they we're definitely terrestrial.

But this trip, he felt differently. It could be the excitement of setting out, but he was ready to find something real. He was off to the Dakotas.

* * *

About a week in, bogged down by a rumor in Iowa, he gets a call from one of the men that, for lack of a better word, recruited him. This had been in Texas, somewhere north of Dallas) where a small group of UT astronomers had claimed to see flashing lights in the sky in the days following a new installation of a new refractory lens for their primary telescope. Micheal'd heard about them, read about them, on the web; the guys he ran into had already been there a week, however. John was the more chatty one, but it was his friend, Specs, that had set up Michael's quick acquisition of the van. It was only Michael's second night in Texas that they asked if he belonged to any national organization, and asked if he wanted to join theirs.

They were called, quite simply, Truthseekers.

Michael liked that. It wasn't flashy or dramatic, but it hinted at a greater purpose, and it implied the lie that society lives in.

So he joined, with all the recklessness of a teenager finding the place they think they belong. And now John's called him with word of an actual crash site, close to him—well, a state or so away— in North Dakota.

Driving through a snowstorm on the way there, Michael has more than a few moments of doubt, not in what he's doing or where he's going, but whether he'll even make it. His van weaves all over the highway, visibility is almost nonexistent, and though there are plenty of places to pull over and stop for the night, he doesn't. Something's telling him to _Get there, Now_ , and he's learned to trust those instincts.

He drives and drives and makes it. Happily enough, it's already night and the clouds are rolling back like the curtains of a stage. Cary, North Dakota. East of town proper. and something zips over the roof over his car, almost too fast to see.

 

Michael slams on his brakes instinctively as whatever-it-is flashes by, then immediately stomps on the accelerator, cursing his gut impulse. The object—he can’t allow himself to get his hopes up, not yet—has vanished, but there’s a glow in the woods, off to his left. Whipping a sharp u-turn, Michael drives back to a low billboard he’d passed a quarter-mile back and parks his van behind it. After jumping out and rummaging through the back, he pulls a camouflaged tarp over the van and sets off.

He’s pretty sure he knows what the unmoving lights in the forest are, and while he’s dismayed and curses the weather that he’s gotten here too late, it just means that there’s something here to find.

 

Ten minutes later, armed with his flashlight, the notepad he always has on him in the chest pocket of his heavy coat, and something John described as an “organic motion capture camera,” Michael’s boots are soaked with slush as he treks through the woods. To be blunt, Michael doesn’t much care for the camera; he wants to see the craft, to prove that first off, before he or anyone else could dream of seeing an actual extraterrestrial. He’s freezing and wishing for a pair of gloves, but those thoughts are shoved further into the back of his head the closer he gets to the illuminated part of the forest. He can smell something in the air. It’s like smoke, but not wood and warmth—sharp, acrid, like plastic and burnt silicone.

He tramps on, stopping for a few moments to peer dumbly at a dark hulk of a vehicle, like a tank with tires, still warm from the race there, completely empty.

There are more tracks leading forward, so Mike cuts left and moves on parallel to the now obvious path the government or so he’s thinking, has left for him.

With no real plan and pure excitement urging him forward, Michael unthinkingly ducks right under the red and black “KEEP AWAY – QUARANTINE” tape, right after he takes a photo of it. The default setting for the fancy camera is to take a shot automatically when something living, above a certain set temperature, moves within the frame, but there’s a button at the top like a traditional camera, and Michael’s very ready to chronicle his first “incident.” Or, even better, _sighting_.

No, the caution tape doesn’t stop Michael’s advance. It’s when he raises the camera again, some minutes later, to capture the enormous spotlights aimed low into what most would call a crater, that he stops. Or rather, is stopped. There’s a soft crunch behind him, a boot in the snow, and everything goes black.

 

When Michael wakes up, he’s in some sort of pop-up room, like a beach canopy in olive drab. The back of his head hurts, throbs, actually, and he’s a little furious.

“Ah, Michael, how’s your head? Not too scrambled, I hope? Well…not any more than before, perhaps.”

Mike looks up, black butterflies still flapping slowly into his sight, but he can clearly see that he and the other man are alone in the tent. He must be gaping at the man in the suit, because the guy laughs, totally laughs _at_ Michael, but he catches the rigid glint in the suit’s eye as well, and his anger starts to fade away, replaced by caution.

“Well, no matter Michael. So, how’d you end up here—can’t have wandered this far from home on your own two feet?”

“How do you know my name?” as soon as he’s asked, Michael has a fleeting moment of self-importance before the suit laughs again and flips his wallet into Michael’s lap. Mike realizes he’s not bound to the chair he woke up in; so he’s not handcuffed, but his wrists _are_ somehow sore and chafed.

“Sorry about that Michael, we had you cuffed until we knew you weren’t dangerous.”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Please. Some eighteen—or do you prefer almost-nineteen—year-old kid shows up in the middle of the woods, by himself, with a dead flashlight and a notepad, with hair the same color as my middle-schooler? I think the United States Army will be fine.”

Michael decides then and there that he has to be quiet on all fronts, partly because of how calm and impassionate this man is, and partly because the man hadn’t mentioned the camera, which means it’s either they’ve taken it or maybe, just maybe, he’d dropped it and it’s lost in the snow and undergrowth. Either way, it’s beyond him. He remembers Ash wondering if his tech was stolen from the military, and winces. Then he remembers he and Ashton aren’t even friends right now, and the thought that that might be how they’ll always be shocks him back to focus.

“I repeat, now that you seem to be paying attention again, where, _exactly_ , is your vehicle, Michael.”

“Sorry sir, I don’t believe I need to tell you that.”

The man just stares at him, calm as ever, apart from the angry flush edging out from the collar of this shirt. “No, Mr. Clifford, that’s true. I can tell you’re not going to budge on that one, interesting. Well, I don’t think I need to worry about a child wandering in the woods.”

Michael only smiles blandly, resisting the urge to prove his worth and work to this jackass by showing off the contents of his van.

“I guess we’re done them, Mr. Clifford,” the suit smiles down at him, tightly now, and grim, “Time for you to toddle home to…Indiana, was it?”

“Illinois, sir.”

“Ah yes. All those middling states, who can really tell the difference?”

Unbidden, his brain jumps to Ashton again:  he’s glad he doesn’t have the same sense of hometown pride, because judging by the piece this guy is wearing under his suitcoat, and the shadowed figures outside, picking a fight wouldn’t work well for him.

“Um, yes, we get that a lot.”

“Merrick, York, could you come in?” Two men in winter camouflage walk through the doorlike flap, and Michael goggles at the former, who is _built_ and offers Michael a rueful smile before snapping to attention. “Merrick here was the one who put you out, but please don’t bear him any ill will—I’m sure you couldn’t expect any other outcome from breaking into a government quarantine site. Time to go Mr. Clifford.”

Michael stands and manages to stay upright despite the stab of pain thorough his skull. He leaves the tent without a word and the two lugnuts in uniform walk him to the road. They’re somehow close to town, a lot closer than when Michael ended up last night, and it’s going to be a long walk to his van.

Merrick speaks up as Michael turns to walk away, “Your head, it’s ok?”

Michael quickly smiles at the guy before he starts walking, “haven’t had any complaints.”

 

After collecting his van and finding the nearest motel, Mike starts to worry that they let him go so easily.

“Too easy,” he mutters in the silence of him room, then cracks a grin at the ridiculousness of it all. He definitely found something, some secret, and while there’s no way he’ll be able to get close again, or even prove he was there in the first place, this confirms…something! Whether it’s aliens or not—and he still believes it must be—the military is hiding something in a crater in the woods here.

But not for much longer, he thinks. They’ll pack it in soon, fill in the hole, salt the earth, whatever it is they do to leave no traces. It’s been done before.

He’s surprised though; he just walked away with hardly a slap on the wrist. Rolling over and out of bed, he hurries back to his van, checks over all his equipment again.

If they _had_ found his ride, it makes sense to bug it, right? Maybe that explains why they turned him loose without a second thought?

He doesn’t find anything, not this time and not the other two times he checks that night. In the morning, he drives into town and steels himself for a very awkward and apologetic phone call.

 

It’s not as bad as he’d expected. He hadn’t gotten a hold of John; his friend Specs has answered and while he didn’t seem too pleased about the loss of the camera—which, in retrospect, Michael should have mentioned _after_ his discovery—he said he was proud of Michael for in inaugural run-in with the government.

Specs also said Michael would need to meet with some people in person, to get new gear and describe everything. “Not over the phone,” were his exact words, and Michael had a fleeting second to wonder if he’d ever become a full-fledged conspiracist before Specs was rattling off an address in Wyoming, someplace to meet some other members of Truthseekers.

After hanging up, he glances down at the names again. Kate and Madge Appleton. He’ll spend the rest of the afternoon hitting up the locals, but then it’ll be time to hit the road.

 

Michael’s so used to being awake at night that he rockets up at quarter to twelve, decides to just leave early for Wyoming. He can drive through the night, and hopefully escape the numb and confused feeling he’s had since his run-in with the suit and co.

An hour in, this thoughts revolve back to Ashton. His best friend, who would have no idea if something _had_ happened to Michael back there. His best friend, who he’d snapped and swore at before running away over nothing deeper than Ash’s damn _concern_. It’s been nearly a month since their fight, and even though Michael knows it’s stupid, he can’t just text an apology to Ashton and assume everything will be ok again. Yes, he was genuinely hurt by what Ashton had said, his dismissal of everything Michael believed in, because they indirectly pointed at his own doubts—not that he was wrong about extraterrestrials, but that he was being played, that Truthseekers was some sort of scam, that he’d be steered further and further from his goal.

Driving grimly through the wide spaces of the North, he resolves to quit, to do his own thing again…and to make things right with Ashton. It’s nice to have his parents to fall back on when he’s home, but Ash is the person he really wants to be around, to rely on, the only one who somehow believed in _him_ , even though he thought Michael was dedicated to something impossible. He may disagree on all counts, but he believes Michael…his concern about the technology and about Michael’s commitment wasn’t doubt; Mike gets that now.

The longer a fight or a silence goes on, often the harder it is to mend. At one in the morning, this old standby doesn’t hold much water. With no hesitation, Michael snatches his phone from the cupholder and immediately calls Ashton. There’s an hour time difference, so it’s nearing two in the morning for Ashton, but he picks up anyway.

“Michael?”

“Hey, hey Ash. I’m…I’m sorry to have woken you.”

“No, ‘s fine…I was sort of awake anyway.”

Michael resists the urge to ask what Ash is up to, and to ask about the muffled laugh after Ash speaks—he hasn’t earned the right to know yet—and dives into his proper apology. “Look, Ash, I’m so sorry for blowing up at you, but I’m ever sorrier for not fixing it right away. I’ve been avoiding thinking about you for the past month, but I’m driving now and, like, fuck, I miss having you on my side. I miss talking to you about all my shit and you scoffing at me. Blanking you like you’re nothing was horrible, and wrong. I just…we’re supposed to be best friends, it’s wrong when we’re not like that.”

There’s silence for a bit, and Michael can almost hear Ash’s frown from the other end, “Yeah. The thing is Michael, it sucks not knowing if you’re ok, but I can deal with that. You gotta know I’m going to be flipping out always, because you’re a stupid impulsive shit, but I do trust you. You have to trust me to trust you.”

“I do! I don’t really get all of you, but I know you worry and that’s not because you don’t have faith in me.”

“Exactly. Ugh, Mikey, we should have had this discussion a long time ago. I’m trying to figure out how to be a long-distance best friend, need your help not to suck at it.”

“’m glad I called you. Even if it’s weeks late.”

“Me too.” Michael can hear rustling from Ash’s end, but he holds back again.

“So, can you stay up longer? I don’t want to keep you up or away from whatever you’re doing.”

“No, talk to me, definitely!” More rustling, a mumble, comes through.

“Ok, um…so I left home last week, went to North Dakota, aaaaand…I got captured by the military!”

“Michael! What the hell?! Wait, _that’s_ why you called! Fuck, is this your one phone call? I’m not equipped you get you out of jail, Mike!”

“That’s for regular prison, you dolt. I’m driving, remember?”

“Oh yeah, right. Sorry.”

“’s fine,” Michael grins, happy Ashton’s always gonna be Ashton, “So, I _found_ a crash site, Ash! There were quarantine signs and stuff up, but I knew that was BS, so I went through—”

“Fuck’s sake, Mike—”

“—and some big guy clocked me on the head. Woke up with some stuck-up suit, they didn’t get anything from me, hell yeah, and he just…let me go!”

“Fuck, you’re incredible, Michael,” Ashton sighs in exasperation, “an idiot, and potentially deluded, but incredible.”

“Thanks…I guess,” Michael laughs loudly down the line, and is impossibly glad to finally hear Ashton’s answering giggle.

“So, I’m actually going to meet up with some people later today, should be cool.”

“Yeah? More members of the Loony Club?”

“You ass. And yes. Some kind of ET hunter couple.”

“Alright. St—”

“Stay safe, I will Ash.”

“I know, I know.”

They lapse into a peaceable silence for several moments.

“So, tell me about school. Any better sophomore year? And how’s it with Luke and Cal”

“Yeah, it’s been great, fascinating. Definitely staying on the physics track. But I’ll tell you about it all another time, yeah? Save my boring stuff for when I see you.”

“’K. Just know I’ll never get the experience, so I have to live it through you. I’ll let you go though, yeah? Let you go back to it?”

“Sure! I’m really glad you called, Michael. Things’ve sort of sucked without your crazy on the other end of the phone.”

“I know. God. Ok, night Ash.”

“Good night, Michael.”

Passing a slow-moving semi, Michael wonders if maybe Ashton had been _with_ someone, when he picked up the phone. They'd never really discussed relationship stuff, romantic stuff, beyond Michael's thing for Jessica Alba back in the day and Ashton's crush on the upper level history professor back in high school. Being more inclined to the sciences, Mike, Ash, and Luke had never taken one of his classes, but Calum had, and Ash used to constantly press Cal for details both semesters.

But Ash had been in college during Michael's senior year, and Michael had no idea if he'd dated anyone—he figured Ash would have told  him about it though. And honestly, when would he have the time? He was always with Michael on the weekends, and they'd often meet up after their respective classes were over to do homework together on weekdays.

Maybe it was good for Ash that he was gone so often, Michael concludes. They were different—Michael needs alone time to recharge himself, but Ash is better with people, feeds off of them, happiest when he can make other people happy. Not for the first time, he wonders what pulls Ashton to physics, not something like acting or music. Must be something wild about locking yourself in a lab and using letters for numbers.

He's heard Ashton ramble on for hours about black hole theories, multiple dimensions, what lightspeed does to time, but he's never asked _why_ Ashton cares so much about that stuff. Maybe that should make him feel like a bad friend, but mostly it feels right. he knows Ash cares about it all, knows it's important to him. That's the only thing Michael needs to know.

Wracking his brain, he can't really remember a time Ash has asked him about the _why_ of his own passion, either. Except, that is, at the end of their stupid fight, when he'd implied Mike's whole "UFO-thing" meant something else. That sucked, that stung. He thinks he'll tell Ashton the _why_ someday, but it's not that important...nothing special.

Michael cranks the volume in his van, happy to jam a little and pass the time with ACDC, rather than half-forgotten memories. He's hoping to reach the address of his contacts before noon, and wonders for a second why UFO-hunters would want a permanent address in the Cheyenne suburbs.

* * *

It's a proper house. Two story, nice landscaping, everything. But they don't come out through the front door; rather, a tiny woman who looks a lot like Cal's grandma pops out of the back of a screaming purple van parked in the driveway. As she waves happily and makes her way towards him, Michael's mesmerized by the..."mural" seems to be the best word, on the side of the van.

He and Calum had binge-watched all ten seasons of Friends once, when both had a lengthy bout of strep throat their sophomore year. Ashton and Luke weren't allowed to visit them on their deathbeds, but Michael had persuaded his and Cal's parents to let them at least be ill together. They'd loved the show, and Michael especially loved Phoebe. The van in the driveway in front of him wasn't exactly like the van Phoebe and Monica got to start their catering business, before Monica got a "real job" and left Phoebe high and dry, but it's close enough to shock Michael. They must've found the same damn artist to paint theirs, because while the subject was different, there was no mistaking the dramatic moonlit background and flowing hair. The lady on _this_ van was popping out of a classic flying saucer, rather than riding a dragon.

Before he can ask, the old woman had wrapped her arms around him where he stood, mouth agape, the door of his own modestly grey vehicle still wide open.

"You must be Michael! Oh dear, you're really quite young, you know. _And_ you've driven through the night; Kate and I weren't expecting you util late this afternoon. Well, here you are, I'm Madge, Kate's with the kids in the garden, but you stay here until I get her, yes?

"Um—"

"See, Alexander's wife is very kind, but she does like to limit the babies' exposure to our nuttiness," Madge waves her hands wildly next to her head, but nearly whispers her next words, "we like to respect her wishes, and you could be deranged for all we know." She winks solemnly at him before pulling him in for another hug. She smells like incense and apples.

"I, um, John told you why I'm here?"

"Yes, yes, 'debriefing.' Ha! We're just going to chat, maybe over a sandwich at the deli. Let me get Kate."

Madge swishes away, and Michael sits down on the curb, very, very unsure of what's going on. His door is still open.

Is it really possible that he could have been trekking through slush-filled woods just two nights ago, searching for signs of extraterrestrials, and is now here in the suburbs of Cheyenne, Wyoming, about to talk about aliens with two old ladies, grandmas, over sandwiches, and pie, if Madge's softness is anything to go by? He glances back over at their van again; it's slightly bigger than his, so he's guessing this house is their kid's, Alexander's.

His head is spinning, and he sends a photo of the van's mural to Ash with a series of question marks. Ash replies with a dozen exclamation points and demands an explanation later.

After Michael tucks his phone away, Madge reappears out from the side of the house, a taller and rather less enthused-looking woman in her wake.

"So, you're this Michael? Think I've been probed more times than years you've been alive, kid."

Michael's eyes widen, but Madge smacks the other woman on the arm and, while trying not to laugh, reassures him that Kate is just joking.

He shakes her hand—it feels more appropriate than a hug—and sees the twinge of a smile at her lips.

"Yes, I'm Michael, I'm the dummy that lost new equipment as soon as I got it, and I feel a little out of my depth here."

"OK kid, ya might be in the wrong line of work if talking to two old dykes bothers ya." Michael can hear the faint burr of a long-forgotten accent in her voice, and calmly ignores the slur. They're from a different time, he tells himself, though again Madge seems on top of things.

"Hush, what have I told you? I don't care for that word, I didn't then and I don't care for it now. It's not appropriate."

"I'll show you not appropriate," Kate grumbles.

"Do you mind walking, Michael? It's good for us chasers, with all the driving we do."

"Uh, no, that's fine. It's OK that I'm parked on the street?"

"Fine, fine, kid," Kate has already taken Madge's hand ad they've started down the sidewalk.

"Right, I'll just lock up."

"Smart!" Kate calls sarcastically back to him while Madge looks apologetically over her shoulder. Michael would rather not leave his van out like this, but a man waves over at him from the front porch and flashes him a thumbs up. Mike smiles back before hurrying to catch up to Kate and Madge, who are already crossing to the next block. 

He follows quickly behind them, listening as Madge prattles on about the trip she and Kate just arrived from—they'd been down to Texas and New Mexico. Michael tries to mention his miracle in Roswell, but Madge keeps talking happily, seems not even to notice his attempted interjection. Kate looks back and shoots him a tight smile. Unsure of what that's about, he's quiet again until they order sandwiches at the deli counter and sit down at one of the small booths.

"So Michael, we hear you lost some kinda fancy camera? Probably important, I'd say?"

"Ease up there, Katherine, poor kid got his first whiff of the real deal!" Madge chuckles.

"Um, yeah, it was some sort of motion-detecting deal. Very cool. At least, I think it would have been," Michael says uncomfortably.

"Don't worry Michael, we've all had run-ins with Johnny Law, or whathaveyou. Tell us about what you saw."

Looking at the women across from him, Madge with her bright smile and Kate with arms crossed and food untouched, Michael sees the same look of curiosity  and joy he saw on John and Specs' faces when they'd invited him to watch the sky with them, the same look he saw on his own face in a photograph Calum had snapped one night while he was babbling excitedly to Ashton about the theorized ability of spacecraft to move along their z-axis with no difficulty.

It's the look that reveals belief in the unbelievable and thrill of the impossible.

And Michael completely relaxes, into his seat, his sandwich, this place, and in the presence of his fellows.

"Ok, ok, I'll start form the beginning. John—"

"Oh, we call him Feldy, such a good man, right Kate?"

"Hush, you beautiful mockingbird. Let him get it out."

Madge smiles at Michael, her dark eyes disappearing behind round cheeks, and mimes locking her lips.

"Um, so John called me and he overnighted the camera and some batteries for the wavereader to my parents' house, where I was staying for a few weeks. He said to head up to the Dakotas' border—that there had been a lot of traffic in the skies up there. And I stayed in a rest area for a few days, until he sent exact coordinates over the radio. And I swear, I saw something. Before I even got to the crash site, but when I was close, there was this light, zipping right over the roof of my van! I really think it was some kind of craft, you know!" In his excitement, Michael's again forgotten who he's talking to, his voice loud and desperate for them to believe him.

Madge frowns slightly, glancing at Kate before she leans over the table to wipe mustard off his face. “We believe you, kid, of course we do,” murmurs Kate quietly. She doesn’t smile, up Michael can hear here sincerity, even compassion, and he continues.

“So, I got close, hid my van, and hiked through the woods. Found a big tank-looking thing, skipped through the ‘Quarantine’ tape, and, ok, I hardly saw the crash site, crater, whatever it was, but it was _something_ , and it smelled wild, like burning plastic and metal and…something, I don’t _know_ , I’m sorry…”

As he lapses back into silence, picking up his sandwich again, Kate and Madge are quiet, though, after three bites, Kate begins tapping her fingers on the table in impatience, so he picks up again.

“And when I got close, I got knocked out. That’s when I dropped the camera. Or when they took it, I’m not sure. Either way, definitely gone. And fuck—”

Kate immediately bursts out laughing, while Madge elbows her in the side before exploding, “Michael! We may share similar interests and be having a quite casual meal, but that doesn’t mean you can up and swear like you’re with a gaggle of your friends!”

“Good heavens, that was perfect, kid. I knew you weren’t as much of a ninny as you Midwesterners come across,” Kate mimics the look of horror stuck on Michael’s face, before cackling again.

Despite the mixed messages he’s getting from them, Madge’s disapproval is a stronger motivation to shape up, and he makes more of an effort to censor himself. “So, uh, what I wanted to say is that I’m _sorry_ about the camera. I’d be sorry I lost anything, honestly. And it sucks because it’s my responsibility to test stuff, it’s my _job_ , and I f—messed up” Kate grins again, “—so I know apologizing won’t help, but gosh, it’s nice to have faces to apologize to.”

While Kate seems too bust sucking down the last of her water to respond, Madge replies easily, “Michael, what were you supposed to do. Sure, you could have gotten scrappy with the guys that hauled you in, but that would’ve been foolish. You poor dear, you did the right thing. Feldy shouldn’t told you that straight off, and that it wasn’t your fault.”

Kate grunts in agreement.

“Forreal?”

“Yes kid, _forreal_ ,” Kate replies sarcastically, “Now tell us about your new friends.”

“Right. So, I woke up in a tent, like the presidential suite of tents, with a man in a suit nagging me about why I was there and where I parked my car, all that.”

“Any especially descriptive features?”

“Not really. Older guy, starting to gray, kinda tan. He was really sarcastic, though.”

“Gee, what a thing for you to come across.”

“Hush, you,” Madge chirps and gently taps Kate’s cheek twice. “So, no scars, right Michael?”

“None visible. Maybe he’s good at makeup?”

“Hmm. We ran across a man form the military once upon a time, Big ol’ burn on his face, over his right eye. Not the nicest. Met him a few times over the years.”

“Sweets, to be fair, we were not the most law-abiding or discrete youths.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Would you two excuse me, I have to step into the ladies’ room.”

After Madge leaves, Kate squints one eye at him, before leaning across the table, “Don’t bother keeping an eye out for that guy…She forgets things, sometimes. We haven’t seen him since the '80s, and he was quite old then. That trip to Texas she was gabbing about, that was over a decade ago—we just got back from our lodge in Washington State. Don’t mind her if she gets mixed up, it happens to the—the very best of us.”

Michael looks away when Kate raises a napkin to her eyes, and tries to make light of it, “Well, It’s like the saying goes:  she’s, and you’ve, probably forgotten more that I’ll ever learn.”

“You’re gonna get it for that, you snot,” but she’s smiling now, and presses close to Madge when she gets back from the restroom.

“Well Michael, I’m glad you could see us about this,” Madge starts, “and I do think you did the right thing. But this is a rough thing we do. Kate and I were lucky to find and have each other, but she lost her family—“

“That was more the lesbian thing than the alien thing,” interjects Kate.

“—and I didn’t have a great connection with my son until he grew up. That took a toll. More than anything, Michael, is that you’re here today because Truthseekers wants to be sure you’re ready for the drawbacks this brings. Passion is something, bus this could become your whole life. And you really are so young.”

Kate's looking impassively at him and Madge looks expectant. This feels like…the real interview for the organization.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I want this, but I believe in extraterrestrial life, I believe they’ve come here and they visit a lot. It’s not about proof, for me, it’s about faith and reality. I don’t…this is it, you know. I love this so far, I have the support of my best friend—somehow—and that’s the last piece of the puzzle for me. That sealed it; this is right.”

Kate and Madge glance at each other and slightly smile, and then they were up, heading out the door. Michael thinks the "mysterious no response" bit is a little cliché, but he supposes that little theatricality is par for the course, especially when much of the job is repetitive. Even with someone you love, it must get a little tedious; Michael knows Calum and Luke can get pretty wearing, especially after Ash graduated and he didn’t see him every day. Most days though. That was something.

Michael rushes, again, to follow them out.

 

He spends the rest of the afternoon with Kate, heading back and forth between his van and theirs. She grudgingly tells him about how she and Madge met, when Madge was still Madrigal and Kate was still in the closet. Madge had hit a stop sign in the middle of Louisiana while chasing down swamp lights. Kate worked at the local repair shop—apparently old clichés die hard, especially in the South, and they had met there and bonded over pie and a shared interest in flying saucers.

Madge had taken Kate with her when her front bumper was finally finished. Kate even pulled out a picture of that old car to show him—the rear trunk, window, and bumper were completely covered in “I Support the Alien Invasion” and “Probe Me” stickers. “We were all a little dramatic back then.”

Without meaning to, Michael laughs too hard at that and chokes. Kate thumps him on the back several times, and though Michael’s worried again that he’s offended her, she chuckles at his apologies and grumbled, “Just you wait, kid, you’ll be in love with an idiot too before you know it,” as she puts the photo back in the van’s glovebox. “Unless you’re the idiot someone’s in love with.” ~~~~

* * *

With Kate and Madge's blessing, seal of approval, confirmation, Michael carries on as he had been.

Over the years, he collects more blurry photos, mysterious rumors, and contacts with ridiculous monikers than he knows what to do with. The first he often gives to Ashton on the infrequent occasions he makes it home. Ash will occasionally point out that Michael's parents with have better storage solutions that he does in his dorms, but Michael has always insisted that Ash keep everything. Reluctantly, Ash has kept everything; anytime he moves, an unmarked storage bin travels with him; unmarked lest someone decide to open it and use the insane contents to derail Ashton's future career. Astrophysics is a competitive field, it turns out, and he't not about to lose his status amongst his peers because of Michael's obsession.

It's not surprising that, as the years go on and Ashton starts his post-grad education, Michael stays with him more often than he does his parents. Ashton's in a house with other students, and he always manages to convince them to let Mike use the couch.

Their bond doesn't change much, unless it's for the better. Mike stops feeling lonely on his trips, after a while, because Ash always picks up the phone. Ashton, instead of feeling rolled over by his graduate studies, relies on Michael's ridiculous stories of his adventures to help him escape when it feels like too much. He still can't believe in alien visitations. He still rolls his eyes when Mikey gets too excited while waxing about presidential acknowledgement of UFOs, or something equally ludicrous.

Ashton doesn't know what Michael has planned for his graduation present, and that's probably for the better. If he had time to prepare, it'd probably ruin the experience. Michael, on the other hand, is altogether overprepared, for once, but for the wrong things.


	3. Today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (not a summary, an introduction)  
> After four years of Michael's adventures and mishaps around the country, he's headed home for the quickest visit so far, or so he hopes. It's Ash's graduation; he'll be receiving his master's degree, then heading off somewhere for his doctorate. Mike can't remember all the names of the school's Ash applied to, and he knows he'll see Ashton now even less than before. Which is why it's very important he makes it on time, something he so often spectacularly fails at. All their years of friendship are to be celebrated—he's sure he would have gone crazy or quit without Ashton's support, and both his presence and his graduation present have to reflect that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proofreading? Me? My stars, I don't think so.

Michael was late. He was, honest-to-god, stumped as to why exactly he was so late, given that he’d gotten notice of the graduation more than six months in advance, but here he was, stuck in a copy shop, getting yelled at by some couple who claimed they’d “reserved” this machine for their baby announcements.

Ok, to be fair, he shouldn’t have spent that extra night in Oklahoma. That’s definitely on him, but there had be such talk of sounds in the skies above the little farming village that he’d had to stay and see for himself! Of course, he’d heard nor seen anything after all, but the thought that a whole town could collectively be pulling his leg? Not possible. Someone would have broken, surely. The thought of a purely audio-based incident was different, absolutely exciting, especially since it had gone on for several nights before anyone (himself) showed up to check it out.

So yes, he’s partially to blame. But so were the stupid grad announcements—they didn’t even say where the ceremony was being held! He’d assumed it’d just be the college, but oh no, they were an hour away in some distinguished research lab and museum. Just shows that Ashton was too smart, he’d had to get his Masters in some dusty lab.

And finally, there’s the copy store, some Kinko’s knockoff, and the printer he’s using—aside from apparently being the only printer in the place you can reserve—had fritzed out, mangling both the faux tickets he’d mocked up and the beautiful gold stationary he’d purchased specially for this present.

Yes, he knows Ashton won’t care about the form his present comes in, but Mike wants it to be special. They’d been through a lot over the past few years, between him constantly on the road and Ash finishing his undergrad in just three years and working on his Masters’.

They’re still best friends, somehow.

And if this screaming lady ever lets go of his shirt, he’s going to make it to that fucking graduation, speed limit and tangible version of the present be damned.

* * *

 With a scream of tires and slight “love taps” to more than a few of the bumpers in the packed parking lot, Michael parks his van, which has undergone a rather radical interior and exterior transformation since he first got it years ago. He’s no car wizard, but making friends with grumpy Kate Appleton had definitely been a plus for him. The thing had a whole new engine, suspension, tires he makes sure to change regularly (can’t exactly make a quick getaway or charge through all terrains with bald tires), some kind of clean emission exhaust system, the works.  
He didn’t understand everything that went into the van, but he’d done it with his own hands, during weeks between trips, and that felt pretty damn great.

As Michael hustles towards the large operating theater where Ash’s graduation is being held, he spots a cracked-open door and a plume of smoke near the back of the building, and changes direction. Calum greets him with a silent smile and motions towards the back of Luke’s head, some third of the way towards the stage.

The tall bespectacled man droning at the podium on the stage doesn’t seem to be calling any names yet, so Michael’s glad not to have missing Ashton’s walk across the stage. True, it won’t be his last, but it’s the last one Michael’s sure he won’t miss, as Ash’ll be heading off to one of those fancy schools in the northeast, far from where Mike can casually drop by as he criss-crosses the country. Maybe if he transitioned into hunting for Mothman. Or the Jersey Devil.

Chuckling to himself as he sits down next to Luke, who hastily sits up with a sniff and a yawn, Michael grabs a program off the floor, where it presumably slid from Luke’s hand while he dozed.  
“He’s top 5, won’t know the exact rank for a few weeks though,” Cal whispers in his ear, “He says definitely not number one, but who knows.”

“Good to hear. Glad this school nonsense worked out for someone.”

Calum contorts his face in mock-outrage—he, like Michael, never went to college, just took a few photography courses at the junior college near Luke and Ashton’s undergrad university—before Luke elbows Michael in the side. “At least sleeping is a quiet activity, you dorks!” he whispers irritably.

“Good to see you too, Lukey,” and yep, this suitcoat he picked up at a consignment store is definitely too small, he realizes as a seam under his arm loudly rips after he slings an amiable arm around Luke’s shoulders.

Calum and Luke burst into giggles while Michael’s loud exclamation has several “shhhs” directed to their row.

“Now what, I’m supposed to give my toast to Ashton with my clothes ripping off me? The one time I try,” he grumbles quietly to Calum after the many pairs of suspicious eyes have turned to the front.

“You’re just too ripped from…”

“Don’t say it, Calum.”

“…all that alien-fighting, dude.”

Luke, despite his clear reluctance to make any more disturbance, pipes up, “No Cal, he fights the government, alongside the aliens. Do you even listen?”

The jibes don’t bother him—if it were someone else, like in that bar in Tennessee, it might, but these are his friends, his best friends. While Luke and Calum shoot each other ugly looks across him, Michael glances through the program.

There are only a couple hundred graduates spanning the sciences. He finds Ash’s name pretty quickly—it’s alphabetical after all—and happily notes the “graduated with high distinction.” Ashton had mentioned month ago that there weren’t traditionally the Latin honors, “cum laude and all that,” for a Master’s program, and that “distinctions” were what they aim for. Michael sees a handful that read “with distinction” and most had neither. Before he can flip through to see how many other students had earned Ashton’s rank, applause breaks out, and he drops the program over into Luke’s lap before joining along enthusiastically as the droner cracks a smile and introduces the provost. In his purple, white, and blue stole, the provost begins calling the students’ names, according to discipline. Ash is in Physics, and Michael doesn’t think they’ll break it down to be so specific as to break it down to Theoretical Physics, his major field of study. The program had just listed “Physics.”  
As half the graduating class appears to be Biology students, Michael’s mind wanders back to his present for Ash, still unhappy that printer had ruined his ability to give his friend something tangible, as the present itself wasn’t. And thinking about the adventure he’s planned turns his mood dark again.

Michael hair is dark now, the pastels and neons he’d had in high school and for the first few years of chasing had worn thin. His belief remained, but his wonder strayed, and then, disappeared.  
The glow of delight in every rumor, whisper, is gone. It feels like a job, the dragging weight he was sure he’d avoid by choosing this life. And sure, Luke and Calum had jobs in their passion fields, but he never sensed that slow drag from them, the band around their hearts where excitement once bloomed. And Ash had done internships, which sounded like a death sentence to Michael, and had worked on research projects for his professors. He never seemed dragged down by anything, always ready to shout about Calabi-Yau space or something more convoluted.

Michael never thought self-doubt, or lack of passion, would be the thing to derail him. Maybe an “accident” that would leave him unable to live like this, or worse. Maybe, on the other extreme, proof finally coming out, whether from himself or, more likely, some other chaser.

He supposes seeing the real deal would be akin to meeting God. For the last four years, this life had been his job and his religion. It was strange to think about stopping, but he’s starting to slog through it, and why put yourself through something like this if he doesn’t want it anymore. He still has his beliefs.

It feel bitter, like he’s betraying John and Kate and Madge. His parents; Ashton. Himself.

There’s just this last adventure, then he might just turn over his keys to the next kid he meets with a corkboard and a junky radio in his backseat, hang up his coat in some shit apartment near Ashton’s next school. He’ll get used to New England. He’ll get used to a crap job.

It’s odd to think that at only twenty-three, he’s this jaded.

Calum jostles his foot. “I’m going to head to the front,” he whispers to Mike and Luke, unzipping his camera case, “Should be able to get at least one photo of our little scientist.”

Luke opens his mouth, probably to claim that Cal will make too much noise or disturbance, but Michael shoots Calum a thumbs up and makes sure to elbow Luke as he does so.

After a few minutes, and several grumpy huffs from Luke, Michael spots Ashton down near the stage, his hair curling stupidly from under his cap. Michael missed his undergrad ceremony, his and Luke’s, and regrets it immeasurably.

“With distinct honors, Ashton Irwin!”

Michael and Luke jump to their feet, whooping and clapping excitedly. Luke lets out a half-successful whistle that peters off when Ashton mimes “Rock on” in their direction after shaking the university president’s hand. Michael can hear Calum cheering from his place down front, can almost imagine the constant click, click, click of his camera.  
Scattered applause around the auditorium joins them, and the moment dies out too quickly for Michael’s liking. Ash is off the podium, “Kath Keller” is being called up for her diploma, and Michael sits back down, clapping slowly as he does, trying not to let the moment fade. He’s so proud of Ash for this, because even though he’s not done with school yet, “Masters” feels big, he’s never known anyone with that degree.

And after the graduation, he’s got one last hurrah with Ash before he finally settles into something permanent. That’s more than a little scary, both in terms of finality and even just giving Ash his graduation present.

After the ceremony, after the faculty and graduates leave, Luke and Calum, who rejoined them pretty quick after Ashton sat down, stretch and tell him they’re meeting Ashton at some steakhouse about twenty minutes away. Michael rolls his eyes—he’s been a vegetarian for the past three years—but evidently he really doesn’t visit enough for it to make a lasting impression.

>>g _lad you made it_  
>> **you have no idea**  
>> _img.001_  
>> **calum REALLY took a photo of me in the parking lot?? That means he was outside too you know**  
>> _actually I saw him before hand so_  
>> **well damn**  
>> _oh sorry bout the restaurant too, it’s my favorite and Luke made the reservation as a failed surprise_  
>> **Ill live haha I bet they have pasta or soup or something**  
>> _sorry mike_  
>> **shut it graduate**  
>> _see you soon :)_

Calum rides with Mike to the restaurant; he doesn’t even sit in the passenger seat; rather sits on the floor near Michael’s “desk” and pores over the many paperclipped and sticky-noted stacks of photographs in the drawers. Occasionally he’ll hum “you took this?” or “where is this?” but for the most part they’re pretty quiet.

At least it’s not an Outback Steakhouse. Those places are a little too referential.

Calvin’s is where they arrive instead; Michael pulls to the back of the parking lot, even though the place is relatively dead on this Thursday evening. That’s a habit he’s sure won’t break for a long time.

Luke’s already there and as Michael locks up, Ashton arrives too, jumping out of a car that hardly slows down to drop him off, still in his gown with his cap and diploma in each hand. They all wave to the fast-retreating car and then Michael hugs Ashton, gathers him right up and tries to squeeze the life out of him. He’d always been taller than Ashton, even when they were in school together, but it feels like maybe Ashton doesn’t spend all his time in a lab, especially when he wriggles his arms loose and hugs Michael back, putting in just as much effort to crush him too. Calum and Luke glom on too, laughing, but it’s all Michael can do to not shake them off and just keep hugging Ash until someone runs them oven in this steakhouse parking lot.

Grinning, he does finally pull away and he, Ash, and Cal, follow Luke in. IT’s fancy, but not exceptionally so. The napkins and tablecloths are both cloth, but there’s more than one neon sign inside. Michael concludes it’s definitely one of the nicer places he’s been in the last four years, nowhere close to the seafood place Kate and Madge picked for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary two years ago.

“So, how does it feel to officially be the most educated of us, buddy?” asks Calum with a grin after they’re seated.

“I mean, it’s been a truth for a long time, but you’re right, now that it’s official, it feels pretty damn good to confirm it.”

Michael grabs the diploma out of his hands, “so if I scrawl my name here over yours, I’m the graduate now, right?” He deftly unrolls the scroll and stares dumbly at the blank piece of paper in his hand.

“It’s not the real one, you dork! They sent that in the mail after final grades come out.”

“Oh,” he feels a little stupid for not knowing that while Luke and Calum are smirking at him. Ashton pats him on the shoulder though, and takes the scroll back, “guess that makes sense, you need to get those photos taken.”

“To be honest, I think, I’m sure Cal took more photos than the official photographer took for the whole ceremony,” Ashton leans across the table and lowers his voice, “I think he might be obsessed with me.”

“Wow Irwin, you finally caught on…wait, I’ve taken a lot more photos of Luke, I’m so conflicted!” Cal clutches his head in his hands and lets out a quiet wail, interrupted by the arrival of their server, and gloriously, a generous basket of bread.

Michael scrunches his nose up at Calum as Luke and Ashton ignore him completely and dig in to the bread.

“I haven’t eaten since this morning, it’s terrible, we had to get to the auditorium so early. There was no reason, we’ve all done this before. Terrible,” moans Ashton, firmly eschewing the butter and stacking his hoard up on both his own and Michael’s plate. Michael steals one sesame roll from him and stays quiet to look through the menu while Ashton complains about the drama of the ceremony. Luke mumbles along in agreement while slathering butter on his bread before every bite.

Calum kicks Michael under the table after he finally gets to the page of salads (most still have meat, unsurprisingly) and the flash of his camera goes off as Michael looks up. “I probably look slightly irritated there Cal, that was quite a kick.”

“Sorry buddy, but this dinner is my candid complement to the graduation. You’re just gonna have to get re-used to it for the night Mike.”

“Re-used?”

“You know, back in high school, an age ago, remember my first real camera? I absolutely broke the clicker mechanism to that thing.”

“Yeah,” Luke interrupts his conversation with Ashton to agree, “You broke it while taking photos of the new wing at the JC.”

“Right! Right, were you with me then? Woulda been the first year of school, before I left.”

“Yup, you picked me up from—ow, put your fork down Ash, I know—in the morning and it was pretty alright, not that snazzy, but clean. Different from the English building, that’s for sure. Remember when we had to take a field trip to the junior college freshman year of high school. You and me were in Ms. Clark’s class, huh Mikey? You were such a pain.”

Michael’s too busy wondering why Ash’s face turned stormy when Luke started talking to pay attention, “What now?”

“When we met, you were so rude, you pushed me into the fountain at the front of school.”

“Yes, but, you were a shit then,” Michael laughs, “And now we’re friends, so it was worth it in the end, right! That was ten years ago; look at us now!”

Luke grumbles amiably as the waitress returns to take their order. Luke, Calum, and Ash—still frowning—all seem to have their order memorized, and Michael asks for a chef’s salad minus the meat, with extra cheese. It’s an order he’s placed in probably a thousand other restaurants across the country.

“No meat?”

“No meat, Calum.”

“Whoops, fuck.”  
Ashton elbows Michael gently and mouths “sorry” with a wide grin.

“Ok, us taking you here makes up for you pushing me into the fountain.”

“Us? Luke, you booked this, dolt.”

“It’s Ashton’s favorite, blame him for not catering to his best friend!”

“So Luke, you’re blaming me on my very own day of graduation? Ashton's Day, you could say?”

“Noooooooo, just, it’s all our fault? Except Calum, I think, clearly he’s perfect."

They all crack up at that, and Cal snaps a photo of Ashton and Michael across the table, then one of the empty bread basket, after carefully arranging Luke’s fingers just so to the left of the basket.

“You realize that means it’s not candid anymore, right Cal?”

“Michael, most candid photos are fake anyway, you know that right? At least this way I’m going to make it worth saving.”

“What, ya gonna play a sappy Powerpoint at my wedding?”

“Why not? You could meet the future Mr. Irwin tonight!”

“Um, I’m pretty sure I’m already ‘Mr. Irwin?’ I think we’d have to swap last names or combine them or something? The etiquette is still up in the air, you know?”

“Swap names?” Michael and Calum choke out together.

“Shut up.” And they do, to Ashton’s relief, as ~Judy~ sets their plates down in front of them.

Finally, all four of them are quiet, happy to be together, and happy to eat.

* * *

 “Feels like old times, huh Ash?”

“I mean, we’re not quite able to sit up on the hood of the van, but it’s close enough.”

Ashton and Michael sit at the back of Michael’s van—the rear doors wide open with most of his gear shoved towards the front seats, the rest of it jammed into the sturdy shelves Micahel installed after the flimsy ones it came with kept crashing over at the slightest turn.

“True, we should go get your car.”

“Can you even drive right now?”

“Drive? Yes. Well and safely, now, no, probably a bad idea.”

“See. And I’m not driving this deathtrap, fuck no.”

They’re at the sports fields of Ash and Luke’s old college, in the parking lot between some baseball fields and a soccer pitch. Before Cal and Luke left, laughing and sleepy into an Uber, the four of them seriously considered racing out to the closest pitcher’s mound and carrying on their drinking there, until Ash finally pointed out that they could get arrested for trespassing if they went on to the property, but not so if they remained in the parking lot.

Ashton can tell by Michael’s face that he still wants to go out into the grass, especially now that it’s just the two of them, they’re quieter. He hasn’t been drinking, hasn’t gotten drunk since he starts his master’s program, and Michael’s more flushed than he is conspicuous.

Michael breaks off his gaze into the dark fields and looks over at him, “So, what are your plans until the next school?”

“Oh, right, I haven’t told you where I decided!”

“Ok hold up, don’t act like it’s something you just ‘forgot;’ you’ve definitely been intentional in not telling me, which is insane, because I deserve to know why you’re gearing up to hang out with the Jersey Devil instead of at least staying somewhat near the only people that put up with your nattering.”

“My nattering? You literally gave me tinnitus from all your UFO nonsense.”

“They’re definitely not going to give you that doctorate after that ruination of a diagnosis."

“Anyway, I’m not going back east for school.”

The joking flash of Michael’s smile fades, he looks—though Ash had never seen that look on his face before—unsure, “What?”

“And, you’re actually going to have to find time to put up with me, and my ‘nattering,’ a lot more often, as I’ll be in god damn Arizona!”

“What? You’re kidding me! That’s terrible, don’t give up on your doctorate, just because you a got offered some glitzy desert job, that’s not right, dude! I’d love to see you more often, all the time maybe, but really. You’ve been dreaming of getting that degree forever, c’mon Ash—”

“Shut up! Michael, I am going to Arizona and I’ll be in school there. The University of Advancing Technology—”

“Can’t be a real school.”

“—or UAT and it is a real school, idiot, more tangible that anything you’re interested in, so just be fucking happy, Michael!”

“I…am? Definitely a positive emotion I’m experiencing here…you’ll actually want to be in the desert, in the heat?”

“Well, UAT is in Phoenix, but it is sort of near mountains, well, more than here, and it’s near a national forest, one of a billion in the state, so desert is sort of wrong. The telescopes out there, Michael, once I get on one of those they’re going to have to pry me off like a barnacle.”

“Ash, this revelation is absolutely ruining the drama of my graduation gift to you. Fuck! I’m so happy!”

“Oh, gift? Forget I said anything about a life-changing move to the bottom of the country to continue my education and be closer to the irrational travel cycle of an international UFO hunter—”

“Ok, I literally went to Mexico one time.”

“—forget all that, my friend has a gift for me!”

“Tamp down the excitement, ok? How do you feel about New Mexico?”

“Interesting question, considering my living situation in about three months, but I’ve no aversions to it, having never been. Or thought about it much, to be honest.”

“And how do you feel about road trips?”

“Exciting prospect, always been too busy to give them a chance.”  
“And what about me?”

“What do I think about you?”

“Yeah.”

“I think…you’re my best friend, somehow, despite distance and separation—things that I have zero control over—and there’s no one I’m happier seeing. Um, not to be a sap.” All true, but violently not the whole truth.

“Shut up, it’s mutual sappiness, and I love you Ash. I wanted to print out something to give to you, which is why I was late to the graduation, but a verbal proposal will have to do.”

“What the fuck?”

They’ve been sitting until this point, when Michael crawls up to the front seats with a grunt and grabs a half-crushed notebook from the glove compartment.

“This is everywhere I’ve been, all the dates recorded, everything of note, well, noted. It’s actually my third notebook like this. And Edwards Air Force Base isn’t in any of them.”

“Edwards…that’s Area 51, isn’t it Michael.” It’s not even a question, they both know it.

“Yep, and I think you should go with me. This week, maybe tomorrow.”

“Uh. To Area 51?”

“Yep.”

“Just like that, like basically now?

“Yes.”

“To hang out with you and stare at the stars until well see little green—”

“Yes, Ashton, yes. I swear we spend half of our life interrupting each other. But yes, to come chase to UFOs with me.”

“Alright, I accept.”

“It’s f—yeah?!” After nearly a decade of friendship, it’s still nice to be able to surprise Michael. Hell, he’s even surprised himself; he’d never expect this candid affirmative, and decision made with so little consideration.

“I mean, why not, you know? Obviously apart from the whole “UFOs don’t exist, Michael’ thing, it sounds like a really non-objectionable idea! Certainly better than bumming around my apartment or heading home just to pack up again for the big move.”

“Ha, thanks, I like to think I’m better company that an empty apartment. Maybe not better than you family though; once you move, you’ll be further away than you’ve ever been.”  
Ashton grimaces, remembering his half-hearted plans to spend a year studying in London. He’d gotten everything planned, booked, he had gotten cold feet at the thought of leaving his younger siblings. Or rather, that was the story he’d told his friends.

That version was partially true, but he’d known a year into college that his brother and sister would be fine without seeing him every weekend or so, as would his mom. The problem wasn’t with people missing Ashton, it was with Ashton missing people, person, Michael. It was a mix of his family and friends, but in the end, he couldn’t imagine missing Michael for ten fucking months. Ash only saw him twice a semester, and again twice over the summer, squeezed in between internships and research teams, and that was miserable enough. They were able to Skype and call each other fairly often, in spite of frequent poor connections and Ash’s schoolwork.

Nothing about the infrequency of seeing Michael sat well with Ashton, and while he could plan a year in England in theory, in practice—much like dating Luke—it didn’t exactly work out.  
He absolutely loved Michael. Care for him far beyond their constant miscommunications and irritations, the nearly nonstop distance, the fact that they disagreed fundamentally on the universal truth Mike had built his life around. That wasn’t anything, who Michael was was everything, and the fact that they’d been friends for almost a decade only served to highlight that he’d been in love with Michael for nearly as long.

And as long as they were best friends, Ashton wouldn’t gamble that on his feelings.

They’d talked about relationships more than a few times over the years, though certainly less than when they were teenagers, and always in the abstract. Ashton knew Michael’d had handfuls of one-night-stands, but by its own nature, his career wasn’t exactly conducive to building a life with someone…something Michael seemed content with.  
Naturally, Ashton was always more evasive about it—which was part of the reason he’d never told Michael about the three months he’d dated, or something, Luke—his only and only attempt at a serious relationship. It probably, definitely, wasn’t healthy to pine for Michael to the exclusion of his damn life, but he honestly couldn’t even bring himself to fake interest in anyone else anymore, much less long enough to develop actual romantic feelings.

So now, when he can spend more than three consecutive days with Michael, days that would ensure they were on the same sleeping schedule, there’s no way in hell he’d pass.

“I think my family will be fine. You really want me along on one of your ultra-secret trips?”

Michael only smiles at the half-dig, “Yes, of course. No one else could compare.” And as usual when Michael makes a comment like that, Ash’s heart twists painfully as they beam at each other. He continues, “They’re not that ‘ultra secret’ anyway. John always knows where I am, and you definitely do as well, considering I text you seventy times a day, whether you respond or not.”

“It’s only ‘not’ because you always use talk to text and never make any sense. Or I’m in lecture. Oh! An excellent aspect of the program I’m starting at school is that I’ll be in those a lot less often. More hands on, finally. A lot of whatever the physics version of fieldwork is, a lot of travel work rather than homework, which means I’ll have so much time to spend with you when you’re in the area, and—” Ash cuts himself off; Michael’s staring at him with another strange expression, like he’s happy listening to Ashton, yet wants to chime in. “What is it?”

“Just, you always look ahead, and somehow you always find a place for our friendship. That’s incredible.”

Ash smiles brightly again—his heart seems to both swell and tighten at the same moment.

“But, as admirable as you are, shut it! You’ve agreed to becoming a short-term Chaser, so think about that! You’re no longer an astrophysicist—a buh buh, hush, that is what you are, doctorate or no—you’re a simple young man driven solely by his belief in terra-bound extraterrestrials, and your desire to see and document them, got it?”

“Ok, but I’m—”

“Got it!”

“Got it. I want to believe.”

“You do believe, Time to join the Mulders of the world.”

“You buy me a proper too-big 90s overcoat and I might even make it permanent.” Shut up Irwin, I couldn’t stand your attitude forever,” he pulls Ashton up from their spot in the van’s bumper and hugs him tight. “Jokes aside, I’m so proud of you Ash, and I know this is gonna be a great few weeks.”

“I know it too, Mikey.” He does. And who knows, this adventure could serve to steer him into the firm and stable ground of Just Friendship.

As a millennial, as firmly entrenched in pop culture as anyone, he’s positive things like this don’t usually turn out with less strong feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, but here we are! Another slice into Michael and Ashton's life! I hope you enjoyed, and I will definitely try not to leave such a long gap between this one and the last as I did between this and the previous.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! Thanks for reading, team!


End file.
